


It's the Thought that Counts

by elizabethrene



Series: Angels Watching Over Me [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 17:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15320424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethrene/pseuds/elizabethrene
Summary: James and Lily watch on as the Dursleys find Harry on their doorstep and Sirius deals with the aftermath of his best friends' deaths.





	It's the Thought that Counts

Lily found out quickly that she could not handle being in the house without Harry so she decided to go for a walk and try to clear her head. Quickly she noticed that Godric’s Hollow in the afterlife was quite a bit different than it was in life. The amount of people living in the down had clearly shrunk and at the edge of town, there was a cliff that Lily knew had never been there before. Curious about this new development, Lily wandered over to the cliff to see what lay below. 

To her immense surprise, she discovered that this cliff allowed her to see what was happening on Earth. She could see Harry sound asleep, waiting on the front stoop of her sister’s home in Surrey. Relieved to see that he was perfectly fine for the moment, Lily ran back to her home to get James and bring him to the cliff. 

“James! Come on! I promise this is something you’re going to want to see,” Lily said as she all but dragged her husband to the cliff. 

“What is so important that you have to drag me across town?” The words had barely escaped his lips when he looked over that cliff he didn’t remember and saw his sister- and brother-in-law argue about their new charge. As soon as his brain comprehended what he was seeing, his eyes flew to his son to make sure that he was ok. He need not have worried because at the moment, Harry was pleasantly entertained by this pudgy little ball of a baby boy he was suddenly cohabitating with.

At that moment, it was like the weight of the world was lifted off his shoulders. Being able to see that Harry was truly alright and happy was all James cared about and his body visibly relaxed now that he knew he could check in on Harry whenever he wanted to. It was something about himself that he hadn’t experienced until Lily finally agreed to be his girlfriend, but he took great pride in his ability to care for his family and make sure they were happy. 

As he stood there and watched his son, thinking about how much he loved his family, he realized that he had overlooked a few key members of his family. Remus and Sirius. His brothers in every way that counted. He checked on Remus first. It was still about two weeks before the full moon, but it was always somewhere in James’ mind to make sure Remus was doing alright with his “furry little problem.” 

All of the sudden, Lily tensed beside him. James looked to see who she was watching and followed her eyeline right to his worst nightmare. 

He knew Sirius would not be thinking clearly right now, because if the situation were reversed James would have been inconsolable. Lily wouldn’t have been able to drag him out of his stupor for months had Sirius been the one to die first. But this was Sirius that was having to deal with the death of his brother and Sirius was a very different person altogether.   
It hadn’t taken long for Sirius to piece together what had happened to cause the death of his brother. It was his idea in the first place to make Peter the secret keeper, thinking it would be the perfect cover, since he was the obvious choice. However, when Sirius had gone to where he knew the Potter house should have been, his world had fallen apart. To make matters worse, Hagrid had taken Harry away on Dumbledore’s orders, effectively taking away Sirius’ only reason left to live. 

He was currently staring down Peter in the middle of a downtown area, surround by both muggles and wizards alike. James watched as Peter masterfully handled the situation and pushed all of Sirius’ buttons. Years of being a Marauder had taught him everything he needed to know to accomplish this.

“Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?” Peter yelled for everyone to hear. Then Peter reached for his wand and as he swung it around to point at Sirius, he cast a curse so powerful, it killed the closest people to him. Sirius had just barely gotten his wand out before Pettigrew had severed his finger and transformed into his Animagus form and ran away.

The string of expletives that escaped from both Lily and James’ mouths was quite impressive when they saw what Peter did. There would be no hope for Sirius now and they both knew it. Everyone would think that Peter was dead and that would seal Sirius’ cell in Azkaban for sure. 

James knew Sirius meant well by doing what he did. He was a protector by nature and by acting irrational because of his grief at the loss of his family he had lost everything as well. There was no way he could ever be a part of Harry’s life because no one, not even Remus, knew the truth about the Potter’s Secret Keeper. 

It was the same for Lily. She loved Sirius like a brother and to see her family throw their life away because of someone they thought they knew gutted her. In such a short time, her tiny family was completely and totally destroyed. 

As they continued to watch, it seemed to them that Sirius had gone insane, but they knew better. To those innocent bystanders, the bout of laughter Sirius had broken into would seem like the laugh of a crazy and demonic man. But to Lily and James, as they watched from above, it was the laugh of man who had lost everything and was laughing at the irony of it all. No one would ever suspect Peter to be a Death Eater, he was too cowardly to most. But they Marauders should have known. He had always craved the protection of those more powerful and smarter than him. 

As representatives from the Ministry arrived on the scene, James and Lily found it increasingly difficult to watch but they had to know what the fate of their beloved brother would be. Twenty members of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad carried Sirius away and others began the process of questioning wizard and witch witnesses and erasing the memories of the Muggles that were present. 

James couldn’t bear it anymore. He stormed away, back to the confines of his home. James wasn’t stupid by any stretch of the imagination. With Bartemius Crouch as the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the stringent policies he had passed against Death Eaters, there was no way Sirius was going to get a trial let alone a chance to tell his side of the story. 

Lily stayed to watch and make sure Sirius made it into the Ministry with little incident. Once he was in a cell and left alone, Lily decided she should go check on James but a voice from below made her stop in her tracks.

“James, I’m so sorry! This is all my fault! I should never have suggested using Peter as the Secret Keeper. It was too much of a risk when I would have done anything to keep from breaking that promise to you and Lily. The two of you and Harry are…were…my family and I took the easy way out because I thought it would be the perfect bluff. I have no idea how on earth Harry made it out of there alive. No one has ever survived a killing curse. No he’s off to live with those horrid Muggles and because I was so careless, he will never know me, the one person who would make sure he knew how amazing and loving his parents were to sacrifice their lives in the hopes their son would have a better life. Oh what have I done! I wasn’t thinking. Lily, I know if you were here, you would kill me for not thinking of Harry first, but I did what I thought was best. I promise! That’s all I’ve ever done! I love Harry as if he were my own son and now I’ve gone and screwed up both of our lives!” And with that, Sirius pulled his knees to his chest, laid his head on them and burst into tears. 

Lily wasn’t sure why, but somehow she knew that if she moved her hand as if she were rubbing Sirius’ head, he would feel it. She had done this so often in her lifetime that it had become second nature for her and Sirius to comfort each other this way. As she was mimicking these motions, Sirius’ head shot up. Instinctively, Lily started talking to Sirius, knowing he would hear her in his heart. “Sirius, we love you so much. There is no doubt in either of our minds that you did what you thought was necessary for Harry and the lives of those fighting for our cause. We are watching over you and believe us when I say that you will always be a part of us, no matter where we are. We will be together again someday. And if there is any justice in the world, Harry will have the great privilege of knowing you someday. He will find out the truth about what happened to us. If he’s anything like James, anyway!”

Sirius wasn’t sure how, but he was almost positive he could hear Lily speaking to him, trying to reassure him that everything would work out eventually. This was all he needed to allow him to finally slip into a dreamless sleep.

LOVE

Lily wasn’t sure if it was because James knew there was nothing he could do or because death made him complacent but he was handling the actions Sirius took quite well. They had been dealing with the sudden change in their situation for about a week. Sirius had been carted off to Azkaban without a trial, just as James predicted, and they thought things were finally settling down with their friends when things were suddenly uprooted again. 

Lily hadn’t told James yet about what she discovered she could do to comfort Sirius when he needed it most. She was afraid it would upset him and she really wanted him to discover this ability on his own. Lily could tell that they wouldn’t be able to make their presence known to their loved ones constantly, but it was nice to know that when they needed it most, she would be able to soothe them. 

They were relaxing in their sitting room after having watched Harry most of the day when Fabian and Gideon burst through the front door. 

“You guys need to come quickly; you’re going to want to see what’s going on down there!” Gideon shouted. 

“Is it Harry?!” James asked, a sudden fear building in the pit of his stomach for his son. 

“No, it’s Frank and Alice!” Fabian said. “Now come on!”

Frank and Alice were two of their closest friends since they had joined the Order after school and anything they were going through was something they knew they needed to know about. Their son, Neville, and Harry had spent the better part of their first year on earth together while their moms visited with each other. Lily even thought that Harry had taken such a shine to Petunia’s son Dudley because he thought he was Neville; they were roughly the same size. 

James and Lily rushed to the cliff to see what was going on only to have their stomachs drop at the sight they were met with. The three most feared members of the Lestrange family, Rodolphus, Rabastan, and Bellatrix, and Barty Crouch Jr. were torturing Frank and Alice with the Cruciatus curse trying to force them to give away the whereabouts of their beloved master. 

The four of them watched as their friends were slowly driven to madness because of the curse. Of course there was nothing for them to break down and give to the Death Eaters because the Longbottom’s had no inkling as to the location of their precious Dark Lord.

James, ever the protector, led Lily away from the cliff, not wanting her to see the inevitable ending to what was happening to their friends. They would check on them in the morning and hope that were not the next to join them in the afterlife.


End file.
